Jinxed?

What a happy girl I have! I know I recently said she had been a tough cookie! Yeah, So, I said she had been kind of rough lately, she won't nap (willingly), she cries when I put her down and so, I was starting to think Kristen had jinxed me!! Yeah, you did, didn't you?. Let me explain that. Remember we had commented on how Cambridge takes one nap? and I said Emma was still taking two naps? And you said you were jealous and that I was so lucky? Well, right after that it was like she had heard you and she was rebelling! She cried and it would take her 10 minutes or more to fall asleep... no longer the sweet Emma that happily went to sleep and stayed asleep for two to two and a half hours, morning and afternoon naps. oh no. No sweet Emma anymore!
So, thanks to Kimberly, I think I figured out the problem. Well, Kimberly said that babies are practicing new skills. Of course!!! Emma learned new skills! She's walking, sort of, she hasn't officially taken off, but she is always on the move! always doing something now! So, it makes sense! She wants to keep practicing! So, no jinxing.
We're still working on going back to the good life and getting there... These pictures were taken right after the morning nap! She is a happy one!

It must be a bug!!

So, I think there is something wrong with me. It's a bug. It must be some sort of bug! It could be this whole being stuck at home thing. Way too much snow!! I think I got the quilting bug (can this be a new virus?) and it keeps going strong! I'm working on three different quilt tops right now. It's fun!
I started this one yesterday. I like the colors. It will be a pretty big one, 78in by 98in I believe...?

Then, I saw this other super cute quilt and I wanted to try and make these crazy blocks and since I had scraps leftover from the quilt above... I decided to give it a try, after all, they were scraps, and they were literally scraps! I made six blocks and although they don't quite look like the ones I saw, I like them, and I think they will make a cute baby quilt. We shall see...

Rough, Rough, Rough.

Today was a ROUGH day!. Have you noticed that when your children have a rough day, you do too? (I'm sure you have, it wasn't a real question, more of a statement?)
Children really do need routines. Emma actually loves her routine. You can't take her out of her schedule once because she freaks out and goes crazy!. She didn't have an afternoon nap yesterday and she wouldn't take one today! She cried when I put her down! She doesn't cry when I put her down!? Yes, I was a terrible mother and let her cry for about 10 minutes! She did finally fall asleep and slept for one an a half hours.
It snowed a LOT! We had about 12.5 in? It looked so pretty outside. I wanted to take Emma to play but it was just too cold.

This is Emma under mommy's new second-hand tripod having a great time while pushing it around the kitchen.

He did it!

Ryan handled things very well while I was out at Enrichment Meeting, I must say.He called me with these news: Emma wouldn't go to sleep and Dutsikita had a little accident and her clothes were in the truck I was driving. I didn't worry, I knew he would just handle it and he did. I came home and sweet Emma was snoring and Dutsikita was back to her parents! It does feel nice to know I'm needed though...He's always been the natural one at this parenting thing, you know? But it seems like sometime in these ten and a half months I have learned something! I'm so thankful I have Ryan. He's such a good father and uncle.

Sweet Emma was so tired that she didn't even notice the bright flash when I snapped this picture!

Update on Today's Labors

I went for it and made another set! So, now... this is the dilemma: 15 or 16 blocks?

15 blocks??

16 blocks??

Today's labors...

So, I said I wasn't going to sew anything else until I had quilted the two tops I've already finished... well, I just couldn't wait! I saw this really cute crazy nine patch quilt and I so wanted to try it! I used scraps I had just to see if I would like it and so far I think I do, It's rather small though. The finished quilt is 32in by 32 in. So, I was thinking about making 2 more sets (i.e. 27 blocks total) and making it more like a lap quilt. Oh, what should I do?
This is what I have so far...

Sunday Inspiration

Another great Sunday. I took a sweet two and a half hour nap! I hadn't realized I was that tired! It had been forever since I had taken a nap. Oh, it felt good!.
I taught Relief Society today. I taught from the General Conference talk " A Return to Virtue". It's a great talk. I truly felt like I was listening to Captain Moroni as he raised the Standard of Truth and invited the Nephites to fight for their freedom, their families, their religion. I felt inspired to raise our own banner as a reminder that we stand together and that we stand for what's right. I feel like many times we have the desire to change and to re-embrace higher values but we drop the ball, "Out of sight, out of mind" kind of deal. So, we are making our own family banner as a symbol of our duty to stay true to what's right and virtuous.

This is just a picture of Emma and Lehi having fun. She loves him. He makes her laugh out loud!

Upside Down

Tonight I feel like I should give a little update on the new mommy aspect of my life. Things are going great, Emma's doing so well. She's handling food very well. She takes two naps a day and goes to bed at 8:00 or 8:30 pm and for the past two nights she has not cried or woken at all! Sleeps through until 7:00 or 8:00 am. Trying to follow a schedule, a pretty flexible schedule I should say, has really made a big difference in our days. She's a lot happier and she knows what to expect. Also, ever since she took the bottle everything has been much much easier. I'm in the process of weaning her, we're pretty much there really, just a matter of taking care of some little painful details. I'm so thankful Emma is such a good girl, mild tempered (she does throw fits sometimes but they're rather funny!...and cute for the time being...), and this schedule has really made a difference for both of us, I cannot say that enough! I have time to do lots of things really. The house is fairly clean, I do wish I had 5 or 6 uninterrupted hours once a month to really clean it though. I have time to go to church activities (since she's not nursing anymore I can leave her with Ryan), I have time to sew and to take lots of pictures. Life really is coming together now. I'm starting to think that I could actually handle another little one, for a long time my mind couldn't conceive the idea of conception once more! But really, I do feel like I can do it. Especially because I know that with the Lord I can do all things.

She went too far...

It would have been a great morning hadn't Emma gone down the stairs!. Yeah! I had finished making the bed and Emma usually follows me wherever I go (most of the time anyways) so I went to the kitchen and kept calling her but she was not coming my way. After a few seconds I couldn't hear her and so I worried and went to the living room to check it out and I did not see her anywhere!
Then I looked toward the stairs and saw the board out of place (a lame cork board that we use to block the staircase because I haven't found or really looked for a fence) and a set of horrible scenes went through my mind! I thought Emma had fallen down the stairs and that maybe I couldn't hear her cry because I was in shock or maybe she had hurt herself badly... oh, lots of things went through my mind! So, I focused and finally found her! She was sitting down on the first step, her legs through the rails and playing! Oh was I happy to see her!!?? (I'm always happy to see her though...) I was trembling when I got her, I did think about getting my camera...for a fraction of a second only...:)
The rest of the afternoon was great... we had a good time sewing and playing together.
This is Emma's red quilt top. It's very simple, just a bunch of 5" squares sewn randomly. Now it's just a matter of quilting it!

Don't you just LOVE this little face though?!

Lots of Static, but Static no more!

So, I did sit down to plan a menu for the week and came up with some good ideas. I went through the Muncie First Ward Cookbook and found some recipes that sounded delicious. Like Kimberly''s Linguine Carbonara, Sis. Hagopian's Chicken Breasts with Sour Cream and some other yummy recipes. Tonight we had southwestern egg rolls (from Allrecipes.com) and rice. Tasty Tasty! And since I had five wrappers left I made some filled with cream cheese and dulce de leche! Oh man! Those were good too!

These were taken at lunch time while Emma and Daddy were playing together and having a fun time! I love Emma's staticky hair! It looks hilarious! Speaking of static, she took three steps today! She's going to take off one of these days! She already climbed up the stairs! I caught her on the third step!

Today was one of those days...

That's right. Today was one of those I'm-a-failure kind of day. So, I'm having the worst cooking week (month really) ever. I either, have no idea what to make for dinner or I'm missing an ingredient or something like that. So we end up ordering something. I mean, nobody really complains (of course not)but, there's something about a woman that can't, won't or doesn't feel like cooking that screams failure to me! Anyway... I'm sitting down tomorrow to plan a menu and then I'm going to go shopping for my ingredients. So, if you have any delicious suggestions? Please do tell me.
On a funnier note, Emma was throwing fits left and right today! She kept getting in the cupboards and pulling the pots and pans out, even the cast iron one!(She's very strong). I let her play for a little while and when I took her hand to close the doors, she started crying and tried to throw herself on the floor!!! I did catch her though... Can you believe that?? She's only 10 months old!!! I'm in for a wonderful adventure! So, I tried to feed her and she kept being a punk so I sent her to the corner for 5 minutes! She endured it well, can you tell?? I couldn't stop laughing and taking pictures of her first corner experience!

Emma was successfully introduced to the All American Diet!

Today was the All American Day! It's official! Obama is in the house!! So, speaking of being an American (I'm not, I am continental-ly American though...) Emma was successfully introduced to MAC AND CHEESE!! She loved it, like the good American Girl she is (Half American... Full American Continental-ly speaking).

I took theses pictures of Dutsikita this morning while she was getting ready to go to school, isn't she so cute???

A very productive day I must say...

We got so much done today! Emma and I did laundry and dusted the house (more like the living room, foyer and kitchen but still... a lot of work!), we did the dishes and mopped and cleaned and slaved all day! We did take a couple of breaks and Emma got to play with daddy. Emma is such a hard worker! Do you see her pushing the laundry basket? (more like taking all the clothes out and playing with them!)
And even after having slept all day yesterday, she took her two usual naps and went to bed at 8 pm.
Right now, the rest of us(Ryan, Lehi, Dutsikas and I) , are watching Eragon and having Papa Murphys! I am quitting tonight. No more Pizza for me!
So, I was thinking today... it's almost the end of the month and I'm still working on deciding my new year's resolutions! Come on!
Today I played a little bit with the manual setting on my camera, I took a lot more pictures than usual, like 6 GBs! Lots of bad, dark and blurry pictures, but I'm loving learning! These are some of them.

It's a bright sunshiny day!

Oh I'm loving today!! I'm so glad it's just beginning! It actually started yesterday at about 5:30 pm! Emma went down for a nap and stayed that way all night until 9 am today! Crazy!! She must have been so tired for being her usual happy self! I kept thinking I should wake her at around 6:30pm but she just looked so comfy that I couldn't. So, I made her a bottle and left it next to her. She drank it and kept sleeping!. At around 10 I was engorged! So, she had to have some more nourishment! Then at 3 am I made her another bottle 'cause she was getting fussy and waking up, I gave it to her and she went straight until 9 am!!

Magical Sunday

Today was a good day. I actually got up at 7:00 am to get ready before Emma woke up. Ryan was already gone though, can you believe they have PEC at 6:30 am??? I actually remember in one of the English Wards in which I served we had to attend PEC at 6:30am also, we had many PEC's on Sundays, we covered 11 wards! Crazy! But anyways... My hair was done right before Emma woke up, which was at 8 am and after that it was all about getting Emma ready and fed (I was starving! But it was eating or hair? food or hair?? Yeah, I'm that vain! Of course I chose hair! I only do it once a week! I did attack the sacrament bread after the meeting! and I was a happy camper).
Nancy Ellis taught a great and very insightful lesson, she is such a good and passionate teacher!.
The rest of the day was fairly good. I made some cookies and dinner (for a change!) Emma was so funny! I gave her the sippy cup while she was standing up and she drank tilting her head backwards and without holding onto anything!! She was doing so well and then she started falling... until she was back on the floor wearing this huge grin.

Bad Hair Day

Emma's bad hair day!
Another pizza day. So, I have this new craving...Papa Murphy's stuffed pizzas! Love them! We've had them 3 times this week...(I know!) but I'm sure this too shall pass... soon hopefully. And no,I'm not pregnant. Just winter anxiety I think. I can't wait for Spring! I'll be able to take more exciting and colorful pictures. I'm dying to try my Nikon outside of the walls of my house. Emma and I will be able to go for walks and to the park... oh that will be fun!

The Two Sides Of The Story

What a lazy day! (A couple of days actually). Yeah, so, I've been so engrossed in those books! I just wanted to be done so I could actually move on and get on with life! I don't think I have ever read a book of almost 800 pages! Sadly lame but true. But I'm done! I must say I enjoyed the series. I would have liked a battle at the very end though. Entertaining books really. I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to read them and join the Twilight fever, but I just had to know what all the fuss was about, and I actually had a good time.
While I was reading Emma was having fun! Can you tell?

So, of course I didn't make any lunch or dinner (therefore we are starving right now and trying to decide what to order but nobody wants to choose!!) Lehi didn't have school today because of the weather and we decided to go get some McChickens! We love McChickens! These are the kinds of faces McChickens and Fries produce!

Later in the afternoon, once Emma was asleep and I was back to reality I felt like cleaning. I cleaned the kitchen while watching Pepe El Toro (A mexican movie from the 50s) on YouTube. It was fun! I used to watch them when I was little... yeah.. like 20 years ago! Man I'm getting old!!! But anyways, my kitchen is clean!

My sweet 4 legged baby

Yesterday (Jan 15), Emma started crawling on her hands and feet. I thought it was cute and hilarious! She looked so funny. She did it all day long. She also started standing up without help. She kept her balance really well for several seconds while standing. Ryan and I watched her do it. A major step towards walking (according to us anyway!)! Later at night when it was time for her bath, I saw the top of her feet and they were red and sort of cracked, not quite bleeding, but very red. And the mystery of the 4 legged baby was unfolded. She hurt. She couldn't crawl her usual crawl, because it hurt. Oh I felt bad... so bad. I had not put any socks on her feet for a couple of days, mainly because she wouldn't let me, but that's no excuse I know, she's just a baby. And here we are, thinking it was hilarious (It really was though). But isn't that smart though? She solved her problem without complaining, she was proactive! I wish I could be like that!

Here she is! Isn't it cute??

And here she is again, "walking" some more!

Snow... Not Excited at all!

It snowed all day long! We were stuck at home, not that we had to be anywhere, but still... I'm so not excited about this weather... It does mean a lot of sewing (well, not a lot lot, but some. I actually just got my sewing machine back, a fuse or something died), maybe some baking?. Mostly reading. I'm almost done with the Twilight series. You know?, I have been enjoying it. Mostly because it is fun talking to Ryan about it (he really enjoyed the books) and it is a pretty entertaining story. I have had some vampire dreams though... so, I better hurry and be done.

10 months old!

Yeah... Emma is 10 months old!!!!?? I just can't believe it! It's already been 10 months??? I love her!! I love this stage. She is such a happy little girl! She is standing and walking holding onto things, she's so close to walking. We have so much fun everyday. She's eating all kinds of things, chews big chunks of bread. I just love her smile!
Two more fun facts: American Idol started and Lehi got a haircut! He wouldn't let me take a picture though, he was not happy.

Jake's Birthday!

So, Jake, you are OLD! We celebrated Jake's birthday Sunday Night (His b-day was yesterday though, January 12th, and we went to Outback for dinner), with the traditional Jake Tribute Family Home Evening. I love this tradition! My mother-in-law keeps this tradition true for every birthday boy/girl every year. We go around in a circle and tell the birthday boy/girl why we love them and tell stories about them, my mother-in-law starts with the story of their birth and it's so neat just hearing it. This is real Family History! I wish I could remember every detail right now so I could record it here! That would be a neat scrapbook idea! The Story of Your Birth. And record every one's birth story... Definitely going in my list of Projects for this year!
So, here are the images of Jake's birthday celebration!

Two more traditions are shown in the pictures. The first one, the Mexican tradition of biting the cake (and everyone else smashing their face on the cake!) and the second one is the Brazilian Tradition of honoring one person with the first slice cut (Matt was the lucky one!).

Back to normal

It's a weird feeling. Normality? Is that even an emotion/feeling? Things just feel normal again. Party's over. Normal is nice though.
I was thinking how much I miss being around my family (all those that live in Mexico) and then I also realized it's good to be apart. This is the thing, Mexicans are so involved in their families' lives that sometimes it feels like things don't change, like we don't grow, like we don't progress, sometimes like we don't have time just for ourselves. It's hard to understand these sentences I know but, what I mean I guess is, it's good to be apart and let each family live their life, experience everyday life together and develop. Maybe later I will be able to put this in words better.
For now, I'm enjoying my Sunday (see what I mean?, MY Sunday). This morning we woke up late and had to go to the Second Ward's Sacrament Meeting (I left right after the Sacrament was passed and went to Relief Society) but before we had to go I had time to snap these sweet pictures of Emma. This dress is size 3T! I mean, it's still a little big, but it looks good.

Gone

So, my mom left this morning. Emma will miss her very much. It's always hard to say goodbye, even when I know she'll come back in a few months. We had a great time these past couple of months (she stayed almost two months this time! only 5 days short) She made me a cute apron Thursday night. I love it. It only took her 2 hours to make! It was fun sewing together. Sewing is something my mom, my sister and I share. They both are very good at it, me? just starting but loving it! It's funny but I was never interested in sewing at all, nothing crafts, but, right after high school I decided I wanted to go to college in Hermosillo, and I wanted to do Economics, everything was going well, but I was homesick and it absolutely didn't help that my major wasn't what I thought it would be, anyway, I wanted to come home and my mom said it was okay, that if I didn't like it then I shouldn't go back (she missed me too) and so, I never went back. She didn't want me to sit at home and do nothing though (because I now had to wait until the next semester to start at the local college) so she had me to take sewing lessons! I reluctantly did. It wasn't fun at the beginning but it got better and better and now I'm so glad she made me do it.

Toys??

My mom was doing dishes and I was getting ready to go run some errands and so I had no idea what to do with Emma, I mean my mom was staying home to watch Emma but she was doing dishes and I didn't know if I should put her in the walker or what, and I just had to go, so, I brought the chair close to the sink so she could watch my mom, and she opens the drawer and starts playing with the spoons and other kitchen gadgets. She gets into everything! She loves kitchen stuff, why do we insist on buying toys? even educational toys! Spoons are very educational I think! And very entertaining! Will she still like them when she grows up?

Online

Not much happening today. My mom is flying back to Mexico on Saturday so we have been getting her ready and finishing some aprons we had made, we only had to embroider them. So, almost everything is ready now. It's kind of sad to think she's not going to be here on Sunday morning. Emma got so used to her. Every morning when Emma wakes up (and after every nap) I open the door very slowly and she stops whatever she's doing to look to see who's at the door, I smile and get excited to see her (I sometimes overdo it and she jumps and screams, it's so cute!), just so she gets excited to see me, and after the excitement is gone, she looks for my mom and then my mom comes in (or we go out looking for her) and Emma just kicks and smiles big! She loves her Nana, It makes me sad to think how much Emma will miss her.

This was Emma today right before we got online to talk to my sister, she wouldn't give me the headphones back! She thought it was funny.

Who's the boss?

This is Emma yesterday at cheeseburger in paradise playing with Daddy's ear showing off her awesome strength and showing everybody who the boss is!! He was suffering, poor baby...

Dia de Reyes

A mexican tradition! Dia de Reyes or the 3 wise men's day. On this day we celebrate the day when the wise men came and brought gifts to Baby Jesus. We make a Rosca, which is bread in the shape of a big oval bagel kid of thing...we put plastic babies inside. We cut it and eat it and those that get the babies will throw a party on the 2 of February.
So, today...I spent all day making the Rosca and it was a big failure!! So...It's supossed to be "bready"... yeah...I got a giant cookie!! Oh, it's so not a Rosca! Oh well, I guess keeping traditions is what matters! And sice we needed something edible we made a cake mix in a bundt cake pan and it was pretty rosca-ish and everybody seemed to enjoy it very much. We all took a turn to cut a slice of the rosca and we had 3 lucky baby winners! Samir got the first one, Ryan got the second one and Aaron tried to hide his, and he almost got away with it, but we discovered him and he burst out laughing (just look at his picture). So, the one that was left was assigned to Jake and Jamie, lucky suckers! :)

Renew Healthy Habits

Today we were talking about the Word of Wisdom for Family Home Evening and after reviewing the blessings of living it, we decided to make an extra effort to be obedient. So, right after I put Emma to bed, I ran to the store and bought some VERY HEALTHY items! It will be a lot of work sticking to this healthy habit, but it was definitely time to renew it and to take it seriously. Losing weight sounds just vain when that's all you mean by it (and even when you think about fitting into your clothes again, or RENEWING your wardrobe! still meaningless!), but I love how the gospel gives meaning to it through the law of health and the wonderful promises we are given. I am in a dilemma now though... do I have to throw away all my Oreos or should I just eat them all tonight?

So, here they are, delectable vegetables! (I was too lazy to get them out of the bag for a clearer picture...)

December 31

This is me right before midnight. I'm excited for the new year. There are so many things I want to do, to change, to improve, to learn. I love new beginnings, not that you can't start over any day but, there is something about the new year that implies renewal. I have also been thinking about project 365 and about having a word every month that helps me focus on specific goals and also because I love words. I think my word for January is RENEW. Renew old commitments, renew good habits, renew relationships.

December 25

Here it is... Christmas with the Jacksons. It was a memorable morning. The highlight of the day were those coin collectors (or whatever they are called). My mother-in-law had been collecting them for years! It was something her Sister Maryland and her shared. She gave each one of the kids their own board! Isn't that awesome!? We surely appreciate all the time and effort she put in to it and we know they are so special to her and we plan on treasuring ours forever.

December 24 Christmas Eve

It was such a fun night. We Mexicans prepare a nice meal for Christmas Eve and celebrate that night. My mom made a delicious pork loin, mashed potatoes, sopa fria and I made dinner rolls. Dinner was lovely. We couldn't wait until midnight to open presents so at around 10pm we exchanged presents. I got an awesome digital frame from Samir and Dutsika (thanks again! I loved it!) We had a great time together, we missed my sister and her family and also my grandpa...maybe next year we'll all be together again.

I just love this picture!!!

All of us!

December 30

Never looked at the camera! But this is my favorite picture of the day!

December 29

Way too cute!! Way too much ISO!

December 28

I hadn't taken Emma's 9 month old pictures and so, the next 3 posts will be Emma's pictures because I didn't quite like the first ones, I used too much ISO on the second ones and she never looked up at the camera on the third time... so, I finally got tired and decided to make a little collage of the trhee.


This is the magic trick picture! First you see it (the twizzler) and then...



you don't!

December 27

So, I'm skipping Christmas Eve and Christmas Day because I took way too many pictures!! I think it will take me a couple of days to go through them!
But, this was the coolest day because it was the warmest day of the month!! I was wearing flip flops!!! The info bar there on the picture is actually the side bar on my laptop and as you can see it was around 1:20 pm and it was 63 degrees but about a couple of hours earlier it was reading 67F!!! Oh, It made me think of Christmas at home... and I used to think that that was cold! I would have never guessed I would one day wear flip flops on this kind of cold weather!

December 23

Lehi's and Aaron's Birthday! Lehi turned 13 and Aaron 14. They got to go to an Arcade in Indy and had lots of fun. We actually celebrated both birthdays the day after because they got back from Indy too late.

December 22

My mom and I had a wonderful time making Christmas gifts this year. It was nice to spend time together creating. Sewing makes us both happy.